


Meteor: A Final Fantasy XIV Story - Prelude-Rebirth

by Zwill711



Series: Meteor: A Final Fantasy XIV Story [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Female Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Gen, Named Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Naming conventions get thrown out the window because I didn't think about them when I named my OCs., Roegadyn (Final Fantasy XIV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:14:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24785224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zwill711/pseuds/Zwill711
Summary: Sigurd's goal in life was simple-go out and see the world. Then the Battle of Carteneau and the Seventh Umbral Calamity happened, and she ended up injured and seeing the folly of her dream.Now, five years later, haunted by nightmares of Carteneau and filled with questions about what happened after she was incapacitated there, she sets out on a new quest to prevent tragedies like the Seventh Umbral Calamity from happening again......once she makes back all the money she spent getting to Limsa Lominsa.
Series: Meteor: A Final Fantasy XIV Story [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1932538
Kudos: 1





	Meteor: A Final Fantasy XIV Story - Prelude-Rebirth

**Author's Note:**

> Hello there! This is sort of a pilot for a FFXIV novelization series I had in mind, featuring my various FFXIV OCs.
> 
> I should note that the idea for this comes from "Stranded in a Strange World" by diaphanous87 (https://archiveofourown.org/works/20531423/chapters/48731324) and "Our Unending Journey" by @sabato__n on Twitter (https://twitter.com/sabato__n/status/1259996868353949698), both of which are much better than what I'm pumping out.
> 
> Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy this taste of what I've got planned!

_**Meteor** _

_**A Final Fantasy XIV Story** _

_**Prelude-Rebirth** _

Sigurd Hackett opened her eyes and saw nothing but devastation and destruction everywhere she looked-she searched the area and found she was standing on a flaming battlefield, with corpses, weapons and war machines littering the land like forgotten refuse, while burning battle standards stood tall against the inevitable and massive chunks of Hydaelyn’s lesser moon, Dalamud, began to rain down from the skies above, glowing as red as a demon. She glanced down at herself and saw she was wearing a pale, mustard yellow military overcoat.

She began to cross the seemingly endless battlefield, one tentative step at a time, all while staring, mesmerized, at the burning sky. She then heard a loud clanking sound behind her and wheeled around to see a Magitek Reaper built by the Garlean Empire staring her down, its myriad of hawk-like interconnected joints and armored plates making it look like a large iron dinosaur. She spun around and tried to run as the Reaper opened its maw and its cannon began to glow, but one of the corpses she had been ignoring grabbed her by the leg, and the Reaper proceeded to incinerate every inch of her flesh, causing her to let out a scream of pure agony and black out from the sheer volume of pain flooding her body.

Sigurd then slowly opened her eyes again, the pain fresh in her memory, and found herself floating in a realm covered in seemingly endless stars set against a deep and boundless blue sky, feeling as weightless as if she were underwater, but breathing as naturally as ever.

"Hear...feel...think." The words echoed softly in her mind, as if being telepathically placed there-the tone was gentle, and calm; it was clear to Sigurd at that point that this was leagues different from the battlefield she had been on.

The serenity was soon interrupted, however, by the arrival of a person in a red mask dressed in a set of vaguely demonic black robes with dark purple stencils covering it, and intimidating and angular, yet shining golden shoulder pads. The figure extended their arms outwards and the realm they were in began to turn black as dark energies flowed from the mysterious being.

Sigurd glared at him, and suddenly, the overcoat she was wearing were replaced by a set of primitive and barbaric-looking asymmetrical black and red plate armor lined with furs and spikes and held together with a multitude of straps and belts. Then, as if on instinct, she held out her hands to grip a blade and a glowing axe made of hardened light appeared between them-how that happened would be a question she would ask later. She then held it at her waist and swung the axe in a wide arc, causing a wave of light to appear and fly towards the entity, colliding with them and causing a bright flash that blinded her.

The flash dissipated soon after, and Sigurd opened her eyes to find herself in the inn room she'd gone to sleep in. She glanced around cautiously, then laid her right arm over her eyes.

"It's that dream again." She muttered to herself. "It's been five years since Carteneau and I'm still having nightmares about it-and I keep having that weird dream with the guy in the robes, too. What's connecting those two?"

She then uncovered her face and threw off the sheets before pushing herself up and off the bed.

"Eh, now isn't the time to think about that-it's just a dream anyway...and I've got more important things to worry about today."

She then walked over to the window and unlatched and opened it, filling the room with the soft scents and sounds of the Black Shroud, set right in the center of the continent of Eorzea. She then stepped over to the dresser and bent over, her tall frame preventing her from properly looking in the mirror. She cupped her tan-skinned hands, placing them in the bowl of water on it before rubbing her face, then dried her face and hands and glanced in the mirror, where bright red eyes stared back at her, and her long, dark purple hair was a bedraggled mess as per usual, causing her to let out a grunt that indicated a deep-seated dislike of dealing with it.

She then turned around and lifted up the back of the tank top she was wearing, her skin covered in various burn scars from taking a blast from a Magitek Reaper's cannon five years prior, complimented by the strange black six-pointed tattoo just below her nape.

"What was I expecting?" She grumbled. "If that tattoo hasn't disappeared in five years, it's not gonna go away now…and neither are the burns."

Sigurd constantly questioned the origin of her tattoo, as all she knew about it was that it suddenly appeared on her nape after the Battle of Carteneau in the region of Mor Dhona to the north, and that the medics in the Eorzean Alliance swore they didn't put it there, and the mages in Ul'dah's Thaumaturge's Guild said it looked somewhat like a sigil used in magecraft. Other than that, it was an enigma wrapped inside a puzzle box inside a safe.

Nevertheless, she turned back around and grabbed the nearby hairbrush and began ruthlessly beating her hair into submission, as she did every morning. Once her hair was being sufficiently obedient, she slipped a set of ornate metal clips into it, causing two strands to fall gently onto her chest and her bangs to part to the left.

With her hair managed, she turned to the chair in the corner of the room and picked up a pair of second hand boots lined with fur with armor strapped onto the sides, and slid them on with relative ease, then put on a pair of gauntlets decorated with brass stencils that she'd bought to go with it, and she turned back to the mirror and inspected her gear set, consisting of dark gray breeches with red armor plates tied to her kneecaps and red stitching throughout, and her black tank top highlighting her well-toned figure and dense muscles, whilst complimenting her fairly dark, tan skin.

Sigurd nodded to herself, a slight smile on her face, and then slung a stuffed brown haversack over her shoulder and grabbed a faded, well-weathered axe. She turned to take one last look out the window, and then stepped out of the inn room.

She marched down the stairs into the tavern and Adventurer's Guild below the inn, where Mother Miounne, the head of the guild, flagged her down with a wave. Sigurd glanced over and saw her, and walked over to see what she wanted.

"So, today's finally the day, is it?" She asked Sigurd.

"It is-I'm off to Limsa Lominsa." Sigurd responded. "Not like I have much choice-I spent almost all my gil on this gear and transport there."

Miounne let out a hearty laugh at that comment.

"You'd be surprised how many great adventurers started off broke-I'd say you're just emulating the greats." She said.

"Yeah, sure-remind me, how many of those great adventurers ended up dead?"

"You've got a point there. Anyroad, I won't keep you, so all I'll say to you is best of luck on your travels-go spawn a legend I'll hear even here in the Shroud. And remember-you'll always have a place here in Gridania."

Sigurd nodded, a smile on her face, and turned to leave, waving as she went. She then strode through the forest city of Gridania, reminiscing on her many years there as she headed towards the dock at the Lancer's Guild, but stopped as she ended up in front of her old shop.

Before the Battle of Carteneau, Sigurd was a simple armorer, just like her mother before her. When she first arrived in Gridania, she was only eighteen, having left her homeland as soon as she came of age wanting to see the world, and therefore realized soon after she made it to Gridania that she'd need money to see the world, and took up repairing people's armor for gil.

At first, it was a small business-a suit of chainmail here, a sabaton there-but it quickly grew, and by the time she was twenty four, she had a house and her own shop in Gridania serving the Lancer's Guild and the Order of the Twin Adder-but all that changed after Carteneau. Thought dead after suffering injuries in the battle after being drafted by the Order of the Twin Adder, she ended up stranded in the desert city of Ul'dah on the southern coast, due to Gridania running out places to put the dead; While in Ul’dah she recovered both her body and funds, and her shop fell into disrepair and was eventually foreclosed.

Despite that, and even though Sigurd was getting a fresh start in La Noscea, she had called Gridania her home for six years prior to the battle at Carteneau-whether intentional or not, it was a part of her life that couldn't be erased or thrown aside, and she'd always remember it fondly.

Even after being forced to spend years in Ul'dah, even after being forgotten and thought dead by Gridania after Carteneau, even though she grew up in the harsh mountains of Abalathia's Spine, Gridania had left a deep imprint on her-but Gridania wasn't where her future awaited...the ocean-bordering nation of Limsa Lominsa was, and after witnessing the tragedy that was Carteneau, she couldn't turn away from the world's problems and live in idleness any longer.

She was a Hellsguard, and her people were the guardians of the gates of Hell-to turn away from the world's problems would be a disgrace to her ancestors and her people.

Such were Sigurd's thoughts as she arrived at the dock and glanced down at the small boat waiting there and the bulky, pale Roegadyn sitting in it.

"Everything in order, miss?" The man said, tipping his tricorne slightly.

Sigurd nodded silently.

"Then let's be off-it's a long way to Limsa."

Sigurd climbed into the boat and set off for Limsa Lominsa, not knowing that a tale that would make her renowned as a legend among men was about to begin.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> I think I've still got a problem with a lack of detail and too much brevity-this chapter clocks in at 1,541 words-nowhere near what I was managing with my last novelization project. Still, I hope it was enjoyable nonetheless!
> 
> Oh, and while I'm here-@byelacey on Twitter did a commission of Sigurd earlier this year, if you're curious what she looks like-I took a lot of inspiration from this, and pretty much the only thing different is the lack of Bravura.  
> https://twitter.com/byelacey/status/1244703323908956164


End file.
